SC - Platina lunch (15th c Italian, too)

[Daniel Phelps]

I know that we get a number of vegetarians at the feasts in Atlantia.  Because
of this, I make a special effort to include a number of non-meat dishes in each
feast I cook.  Sometimes,however, you have to be careful.  I know that some
recipes call for vegetables to be cooked in a meat broth, usually chicken.  All
I do there is to substitute a vegetable broth that I've prepared ahead of time
using celery leaves, leftover skins from onions, and other clean "leftovers"
...or you can purchase it ready-made.

One other pitfall is the fact that recipes, particularly in Apicius and Platina,
as well as other sources, call for liquamen or "garum".  As this is a type of
fish sauce, it cannot be consumed by vegetarians.  I forgot about this for a
feast I cooked a number of years ago, and several vegetarians were very
distressed to discover that that they had ingested small quantities of the
sauce.  Be sure to note on your ingredients list that it is a fish sauce, if you
use it.

Kiri

david friedman wrote:

> At 12:50 AM +1100 3/17/00, Lady Gwynydd of Culloden wrote:
> >The point I was trying to make (clumsily, I am beginning to feel),
> >is that the attempt to make a "period-feel" cookbook for those with
> >serious food issues is a good and valid thing for the Society as a
> >whole (yes, I have grasped that it is a private project, but the
> >point remains).  In Ynys Fawr, and I suspect the rest of the Known
> >World, we put on the flyers that those with food allergies should
> >tell the autocrat well in advance so that accomodations can be made.
> >As was mentioned in an earlier post, the autocrat in question may
> >well not have access to enough sources to find actual period recipes
> >which cover the problem.  What should be done then?  Surely it is
> >better to make adjustments (and certainly not pass the resultant
> >dish off as period) than have to tell the would-be feaster "sorry,
> >there is nothing we can do".
>
> And the point I was making was that, in producing a cookbook for
> those with food allegies, it would make more sense to find period
> recipes consistent with those allergies than to work out recipies
> modified from period recipies in order to be consistent with those
> allergies. It would make more sense because it would be more fun, it
> probably wouldn't be any more work, and you would end up with period
> recipes rather than period like recipes. There might be exceptions in
> the case of people with very odd and/or multiple allergies who
> already knew what substitutes worked well--but your hypothetical
> cookbook probably won't help them anyway, since you are unlikely to
> have covered their particular pattern of allergies.
>
> >I think that we must have more vegetarians here that in other parts
> >of the World!  Autocrats usually seem to have to come up with at
> >least two different meals, one for the omnivores and one for the
> >vegetarians
> ...
>
> So did Master Chiquart, writing in the 15th century. Vegetarianism is
> not a new thing.
>
> David/Cariadoc
> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
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